For some reason I feel like adding my recent story to this thread.
Around three years ago something terrible happened to me. I thought I was dealing with it but things got harder and harder and a year later I was in a psychiatric ward. This was unexpected. I am in my late forties and I have lived an unprivileged but positive and quite exciting life with no real reason to expect this. Various diagnoses ensued with depression and anxiety being the most common. To be honest there was not a lot of analysis and it seemed a bit generic but I am not an expert. I was put on Mirtazapine and discharged. Things did not improve. I continued to rely on the advice of psychiatrists, they upped my dose of Mirtazapine to 45mg and when things continued to not really improve put me on, eventually Olanzapine 15mg and Lamotrigine 25mg as well. I stuck with this for around a year when I could take how the medication made me feel, or not feel, for no longer. I came off it all at once. It was pure hell and it got worse for weeks. There is no point in trying to describe it.
It is a year since I came off the medication. I have survived by meditation and walking and managing my sleep. I have been offered the support of friends but from this deep dark space it is impossible to communicate in a personal way. Luckily (very luckily from the stories I hear) I have been granted benefits so that I can live and eat - there is no possibility I can work. I am healing slowly. I hope that I am given the time and support to become self-sufficient again. I know it is a possibility but it will take some luck I think as the wrong thing happening could finish me.
I cannot enjoy computer games (or anything) like I used to, even the ones I really used to like. But I have started a bit with ED again lately and the forums.
I also recently started a part-time philosophy PHD. It is not intense and seems to be part of the healing.
The one thing I would like to say is that I used to feel that somebody understanding what I was going through would help but after three years I have learned that for me at least this does not seem to be a realistic possibility and even if it was I am not sure it would be a healthy obsession.
The main thing is practical day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute taking whatever internal step I can take in the direction of positivity and If I cannot take that step then I just close my eyes and try to hold it together while I stay put or slide into the dark. Then if I can, take a step.
Things are improving at their own pace. I am lucky I know that even if I don't feel it. I see homeless people (what keeps them going I have no idea) and I see people living horrendous lives that they would not have chosen. In hospital I met people who just could not get mentally well - they tried. Some died.
So far I am lucky.
Around three years ago something terrible happened to me. I thought I was dealing with it but things got harder and harder and a year later I was in a psychiatric ward. This was unexpected. I am in my late forties and I have lived an unprivileged but positive and quite exciting life with no real reason to expect this. Various diagnoses ensued with depression and anxiety being the most common. To be honest there was not a lot of analysis and it seemed a bit generic but I am not an expert. I was put on Mirtazapine and discharged. Things did not improve. I continued to rely on the advice of psychiatrists, they upped my dose of Mirtazapine to 45mg and when things continued to not really improve put me on, eventually Olanzapine 15mg and Lamotrigine 25mg as well. I stuck with this for around a year when I could take how the medication made me feel, or not feel, for no longer. I came off it all at once. It was pure hell and it got worse for weeks. There is no point in trying to describe it.
It is a year since I came off the medication. I have survived by meditation and walking and managing my sleep. I have been offered the support of friends but from this deep dark space it is impossible to communicate in a personal way. Luckily (very luckily from the stories I hear) I have been granted benefits so that I can live and eat - there is no possibility I can work. I am healing slowly. I hope that I am given the time and support to become self-sufficient again. I know it is a possibility but it will take some luck I think as the wrong thing happening could finish me.
I cannot enjoy computer games (or anything) like I used to, even the ones I really used to like. But I have started a bit with ED again lately and the forums.
I also recently started a part-time philosophy PHD. It is not intense and seems to be part of the healing.
The one thing I would like to say is that I used to feel that somebody understanding what I was going through would help but after three years I have learned that for me at least this does not seem to be a realistic possibility and even if it was I am not sure it would be a healthy obsession.
The main thing is practical day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute taking whatever internal step I can take in the direction of positivity and If I cannot take that step then I just close my eyes and try to hold it together while I stay put or slide into the dark. Then if I can, take a step.
Things are improving at their own pace. I am lucky I know that even if I don't feel it. I see homeless people (what keeps them going I have no idea) and I see people living horrendous lives that they would not have chosen. In hospital I met people who just could not get mentally well - they tried. Some died.
So far I am lucky.
![[VR] optimal_909](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/109/109067.jpg?1553781733){kind=avatar}